🏌️♀️Golf can be a very cruel game, and Rayhan Thomas is feeling every bit of itThomas stumbled just as he was about to breast the tape on the Korn Ferry Tour. A recent clerical error and a 72nd hole double bogey on Sunday denied him a run to a possible PGA Tour card…
One of my career highlights as a golf journalist was when I covered Jeev Milkha Singh’s first major appearance at the 2002 US Open at Bethpage Black course – only the second for an Indian following Gaurav Ghei at the 1997 Open Championship. Bethpage was as raucous and unruly back then as it was during the Ryder Cup last month. The crowd was particularly vicious towards Colin Montgomerie, who always had a tormenting relationship with American fans, and Sergio Garcia, who was having massive issues with triggering his swing and needed countless waggles before initiating his club takeaway. I wanted to write this week on crowd behaviour and how mob mentality takes over and results in unruly and unfortunate incidents. What happened with Rory McIlroy’s wife, Erica, should never happen in sports. Verbal abuse towards players and their family and staff needs to be reined in, and physical abuse has absolutely no place in golf, or any sport for that matter. However, I changed my mind after a long night of hitting the refresh button on my PGA Tour app on Sunday as I followed the scores at Korn Ferry Tour’s Compliance Solution Championship. India’s Rayhan Thomas was battling it out in Owasso, Oklahoma. He had entered the second-last tournament of the season at 106th place in the Order of Merit, which meant he needed at least a top-five finish to get inside the top-75, which would have enabled him to keep his Korn Ferry Tour card for 2026, and also advance him to the KFT Championship. What a fight our man put up! In 71 holes, he made 30 birdies. That’s the kind of golf you need to play on KFT to contend. Many courses are set up in a manner that they are extremely gettable, and Thomas seemed to be dialled in. But then, the 72nd hole happened, which brings us to the whole point of this story – just how incredibly cruel golf can be. Thomas, who had reached 21-under as he headed to the 18th tee, knew he needed at least one more birdie to have an outside chance of getting into the top-75. He tried to be aggressive on the hole, probably got out of his routine, and smashed his drive out of bounds. Wanting to make a birdie, he ended up making a costly double bogey. That one hole proved costly for Thomas and his entire plans for 2026. He finished the regular season of the KFT in 88th place in the Order of Merit, which means he will have to go through the Q-School once again. He gets a conditional card for his finish, but it will only get him a few starts. Obviously, if he had finished inside the top-75, there was a possibility he could have secured a PGA Tour card by doing well in the KFT Championship. Even if he had made a par on the last hole, he would have moved up to approximately 80th place. That would have been significant, because of what happened to him a few weeks ago. Thomas was supposed to play the Pinnacle Bank Championship in August, the penultimate event of the regular season. It was a critical part tournament at a time when he was searching for points to get closer to the 75th place. However, a ‘clerical error’ by the PGA Tour staff allowed another ineligible player in the field instead of Thomas. Throughout the day, Thomas waited at the golf club as the first alternate, warming up several times, but it was to no avail. No other player dropped out. The KFT has assured him a start in the first event of the season in 2026, and the points he earns there will be added to his current haul. If that became better than the 75th player this year, he would have been able to keep his card. That would have been much easier to achieve from the 80th place compared to his 88th. Because he will now have to play the first stage of the KFT Q-School, it also means that he won’t be able to play the $4 million DP World India Championship in New Delhi from October 16-19. Thomas had received a sponsor’s invitation for the tournament, but he has now withdrawn his request because the first stage of KFT Q School dates clash with the India event. So, it has been a series of unfortunate events. Hopefully, Thomas will learn from this and come out stronger. If you’re a football fan, you might enjoy Dhiman Sarkar’s weekly read Kick Off:
THE WEEK THAT WASPGA TOUR: Tournament: Sanderson Farms Championship Winner: Steven Fisk (USA) Winning score: 70-65-65-64 (22-under par) Prize purse/Winner’s cheque: US$6 million/US$1.08 million Indians in the field: None Next event: Baycurrent Classic LIV GOLF: Tournament: No event last week Next event: Liv Golf Riyadh (2026 season) DP WORLD TOUR: Tournament: Dunhill Links Championship Winner: Robert MacIntyre (SCO) Winning score: 66-66-66 (18-under par) Prize purse/Winner’s cheque: US$5 million/US$815,000 Indians in the field: Shubhankar Sharma T61st (68-72-71) Next event: Open de Espana presented by Madrid LPGA: Tournament: LOTTE Championship presented by Hoakalei Winner: Youmin Hwang (KOR) Winning score: 67-72-65-67 (17-under par) Prize purse/Winner’s cheque: US$2.5 million/US$450,000 Indians in the field: None Next event: Buick LPGA Shanghai ASIAN TOUR: Tournament: Jakarta International Championship Winner: Wade Ormsby (AUS), beating Scott Vincent (ZIM) in a playoff Winning score: 70-67-68-68 (12-under par) Prize purse/Winner’s cheque: US$2 million/US$360,000 Indians in the field: Gaganjeet Bhullar T19th (65-65-69-74); Viraj Madappa T50th (68-70-73-66); S Chikkarangappa T70th (69-67-72-74); Missed Cut – Rahil Gangjee (66-73), Khalin Joshi (68-71), Karandeep Kochhar (70-71); Ajeetesh Sandhu (70-73), SSP Chawrasia (71-74), Rashid Khan (73-75), Yuvraj Singh Sandhu (71-78), Shiv Kapur (RTD) Next event: SJM Macao Open KORN FERRY TOUR: Tournament: Compliance Solution Championship Winner: Adrien Dumont de Chassart (BEL) Winning score: 61-61-64-65 (33-under par) Prize purse/Winner’s cheque: US$1.5 million/US$270,000 Indians in the field: Rayhan Thomas T20th (64-65-68-68) Next event: Korn Ferry Tour Championship LADIES EUROPEAN TOUR: Tournament: No event last week Next event: Hero Women’s Indian Open ASIAN DEVELOPMENT TOUR: Tournament: No event this week Next event: Nam A Bank Vietnam Open PGTI TOUR Tournament: Tamil Nadu Open Winner: Arjun Prasad Winning score: 70-70-68-72 (8-under par) Prize purse/Winner’s cheque: INR1 crore/INR15 lakh Top scores: Jairaj Singh Sandhu T2nd (75-71-70-68); N Thangaraja (SRL) T2nd (72-73-69-70); Mohd Azhar T4th (74-73-71-68); Jamal Hossain (BAN) T4th (69-72-74-71); Anshul Kabthiyal 6th (74-69-71-73); Manu Gandas 7th (71-74-72-71); Manoj S T8th (78-70-70-71); Vasu Sehgal T8th (72-74-71-72); Arjun Sharma T8th (72-72-70-75) Next event: Bengaluru Open presented by IOC Written and edited by Joy Chakravarty (@TheJoyofGolf). Produced by Shad Hasnain.
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